December 18 – The Global Player, a new magazine, was published this week by the International Football Arena (IFA) and is as eclectic and elegant in its look and feel as the IFA conferences are themselves. Originally planned as a one-off to celebrate 15 years of IFA in Zurich, the magazine will now be published regularly, though the commitment to the publishing schedule is to be announced.
The magazine, in the English language, will not be available on newsstands but via free distribution and on subscription request.
Publisher Marcel Schmid says in his introductory column: “With this magazine, we would like to invite you on a journalistic journey, present and future, through the richly flavoured and occasionally mad, world of football.”
The editorial certainly delivers on the invitation mixing book reviews with a few well-worn topics and some brand new ones.
Interviews with key football industry figures are central to the editorial and The Global Player certainly has the access. FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and Red Bull founder Dieter Mateschitz all feature.
The cover story is an outstanding interview with Leonardo by Massimo Cecchini of Gazzetta dello Sport (Massimo is also an insideworldfootball columnist).
Finally the magazine trades heavily on the last IFA conference in Zurich where the future of football was the overriding theme for the invitation-only conference. Big people talking about big things (if occasionally unrelated) makes for an interesting bird’s eye view of the way football and its many and fractured business interests is heading.
A copy of The Global Player can be ordered at http://www.theglobalplayer.com/index.html